Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Is Google the next Microsoft? NO, Google will one-up Microsoft.
While John The Google Search Battelle pleas "Death of Journalism--Blame Google? No, Ask Google to lead? Yes," Google merrily pursues its Google News is NO friend to newspapers stance.
Google has learned a thing or two from Microsoft, NOT in a good way.
Why is Bill Gates STILL the richest man in the world? Why does the company he founded STILL benefit from the industry monopolization Gates gained for it?
Microsoft's "Evil Empire" financial success was derived from cunning ecosystem manipulation and brutal industry intimidation aimed solely at creating and extending Microsoft monopoly pricing power.
What really sealed Microsoft's monopoly fate, however, was a no holds barred, take no prisoners modus operandi. Thanks to Bill Gates' dogged persistence and shrewd maneuvering, Microsoft achieved the industry domination he sought, no matter who or what tried to cross Microsoft en route to unrivaled economic power and world glory.
Today's technology power house, "Do No Evil" Google, is no different, in desire or effect. In fact, Google power is even more insidious, because Google has the "consumer" on it side.
CEO Eric Schmidt plays a good Google is no Microsoft game, exhorting that competition is but a mouse click away.
The top Googler himself, nevertheless, is at his finest when he publicly chastises household name content production companies that "there is no need to sue." After all, Google has the fans, all of them.
Google fears nothing, not multi-billion dollar lawsuits, not FTC investigations, not even the U.S. military: Can YouTube out maneuver Pentagon?
In Is Google a public service? I analyze how Google uses its pompous "organize the world's information" supposed mission to position itself in consumers' minds that Google IS just like the U.S. Library of Congress!
So that is why Google is determined to digitize every single word ever written in the history of mankind for archiving in perpetuity in Google-owned top secret server farms strategically built around the world? NO.
Google wants to be the world's for-profit librarian and benefit handsomely as monoploy information gatekeeper.
It is touching, but naive, that Professors of Journalism and ex-journalists are now calling upon Google to exercise its "civic repsonsibility" in the name of the future of news.
Google DOES indeed believe it has a "civic responsibility," a "philanthropic" one in fact. Just don't ask for Google to relinquish a single penny of its high-margin AdWords billions.
Welcome to the philanthropic "arm of Google," the Googleplex cheeringly, but misleadingly, proclaims.
We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems.
Brin and Page can very well "hope" they will do good, but they are not opening themselves up to "ambitously applying significant resorces" to actually do so.
Google's position on philanthropic funding requests:
We are not accepting funding requests and unsolicited proposals at this time.
The world need not worry, though. Google wants to be generous where it REALLY counts: AdWords!
Yes, the Google solution to solving "the largest of the world's problems" is to make charitable donations of AdWords campaigns: The Google Grants Program!
We’re currently exploring the best approaches and solutions for significant, positive impact. While we continue to determine the best ways we can have impact,
Google gives free advertising to selected non-profits through its Google Grants program, supporting more than 2,100 non-profit organizations in 16 countries to date. Current Google Grants participants include the Grameen Foundation USA, Doctors Without Borders, Room to Read, and the Make-a-Wish Foundation
Even in running "in-kind" AdWords accounts "for a good cause," however, Google is not doing it out of the goodness of its $150 billion corporate heart.
NO, Google is obligated to "donate" AdWords as the result of one of those pesky lawsuits it somehow continues to find itself up against, The Lane's Gifts v. Yahoo Inc. et al. click fraud case:
Google continues to invest in the Google Grants program. We are increasing the budget we allocate to Google Grants by offering AdWords advertising to qualified 501(c)(3) nonprofits as part of our settlement in Lane's Gifts v. Yahoo Inc. et al.
Hey, maybe Viacom will settle its $1 billion lawsuit for YouTube "massive copyright infringement" for a billion dollars worth of AdWords!
Microsoft is not looking so dangerous, these days!
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